Competency and Commitment of Facilities Managers: Keys to Safeguard Maintenance Performance

Facilities management is an integrated approach to operate, maintain, improve, and adapt the buildings and facilities of an organisation in order to support the core business operations of that organisation. Due to the lack of knowledge and skill in maintenance-related matters, the organisation and client rely on the facilities manager to take care of their building most of the time. However, the facilities management of the buildings has been unprofessionally applied by the facilities managers, which subsequently triggered negative impacts to the building services and facilities. Lack of manager’s commitment is also questioned because of the salary payment. Therefore, this paper seeks to examine the relationship between the competency of facilities manager and maintenance performance; and investigate the relationship manager’s salary and manager’s commitment through questionnaire survey and interview. The findings indicate that there are significant relationship between manager’s competency and maintenance performance; as well as manager’s salary and manager’s commitment. The study concludes that actions should be taken in order to improve the competency and commitment of facilities managers constantly, and hence enhance the maintenance performance.